Artists concerned tattoos losing nonconformist lure

NEW YORK - As models flaunted head-to-toe body art and hard rock pulsated in a cavernous ballroom, veteran tattoo artists at a New York convention on Saturday wondered if their once taboo artistry was losing its nonconformist lure.

Practitioners from 12 countries posted thousands of designs as crowds packed makeshift corridors and organisers created a carnival-like air with giant freak show canvases draping the walls.

Americans, especially women, are embracing a practice once considered seedy. A growing number of people are subjecting themselves to the whir of engine-driven needles spitting pigments into their body, tattoo artists said.

According to some published reports, around 20 per cent of Americans aged 18 to 25 are getting tattooed. Skin motifs are increasingly shedding their subversive image, some tattoo artists said. And women, who were once scarce in tattoo parlours, now make up about half the clientele, they added.

"It used to be secret and underground," said a man who identified himself as R.J. "There's more tattoo shops than ever before ... anyone can order a kit and do it in his garage," said R.J., who owns the Tabu Tattoo shop in West Los Angeles.

The growing number of rockers, Hollywood celebrities and sports stars showing off tattoos spur young people to go under the needle, the artists and fans said.

"For a lot of younger people, tattooing has become part of life, like buying a pair of shoes," said Spider Webb, 60, who has published books on the art of tattooing since the 1970s. "It's like computers, no one used to have them, now everyone has; no one (they knew) had tattoos, now everyone has."

Webb said he no longer creates "artistic pieces," but instead tattoos to make money. Back in 1977, he tattooed 999 people with an outline of X on the thigh. The 1,000th person willing to have the tattoo got 1000 tiny x's creating the letter in a large shape.

Professionals were among the fans tattooed from neck to calf at the weekend convention. One was a 45-year-old nurse practitioner and another was a 44-year-old corporate securities lawyer who said he earned over $600,000 a year.

"No one will look at a large forearm (tattoo) piece and give it a second thought" in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, the attorney said. He acknowledged he wore a long-sleeve shirt at the office to cloak his markings.

Henning Jorgensen, 44, of Denmark said his clients included dentists, lawyers and bankers. One man paid $15,000 over three years for a motif of a samurai with a frog, drawn down the back from neck to calf. Now he wants the front side of his body done.

Jorgensen said he met a US attorney at the convention who was willing to fly to Denmark to be tattooed by him.

Long-time tattoo photographer Charles Gatewood of San Francisco said: "It (tattooing) is so popular that it has lost some of its magic. It was like a club, a secret society and family. Now it's gotten commercialised, co-opted and watered down ... in the opinion of some people."

- REUTERS